[Sidenote: Papal claims strengthened and extended by St. Gregory]
The good and wise St. Gregory the Great (A.D. 590-A.D. 604), though he strenuously disclaimed for himself, and denied to others, the right of assuming the title of "Universal Bishop," appears to have had very strong ideas respecting the authority which he conceived to belong to the successors of St. Peter, whilst his talents and holiness gave him an extensive influence over his contemporaries. [Sidenote: and Hadrian I.] Succeeding Popes laid claim to more extended powers, especially Hadrian I. (A.D. 772-A.D. 793), who first advanced the doctrine that the whole Christian Church was subject to the see of Rome. [Sidenote: Rise of the temporal power of the Popes under Leo III.] His successor, Leo III. (A.D. 795-A.D. 816), having crowned Charlemagne Emperor of the West, A.D. 800, received from that monarch the sovereignty of Rome, and thus became a temporal prince as well as a Bishop, and about the same time there began to appear certain forged canons (or Church laws), professing to be ancient decrees collected by St. Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, and having for their object to give primitive sanction to Roman Supremacy. [Sidenote: "Pseudo-Isidore" Decretals] These "Pseudo-Isidore" Decretals, as they were afterwards called, were frequently appealed to, apparently in good faith, by subsequent Popes; and their genuineness was generally believed in, almost without question, until the time of the Reformation in { 104} the sixteenth century. By about the middle of the ninth century these decretals were made use of to settle ecclesiastical questions, and Nicholas I. (A.D. 858-A.D. 867) laid great stress upon them when the liberties of the French Church were again defended by Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, in a very similar case to that in which St. Hilary had offered opposition to St. Leo. [Sidenote: Hincmar's opposition to papal claims.] Hincmar's zeal in opposing the usurpations of the Roman see had some little success during the episcopate of Hadrian II. (A.D. 867-A.D. 872), but its effects passed away when John VIII. (A.D. 872-A.D. 882) espoused the cause of Charles the Bald, and thus enlisted the interests of the crown on his side.